


The Spider's Catch

by insanemoriarty



Series: The Spider & His Fly [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, Cunnilingus, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Knifeplay, Porn With Plot, Smut, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-15 01:09:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1285588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanemoriarty/pseuds/insanemoriarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally intended to be a smutshot but changed due to my inability of writing without plot.  An intelligence agent whose job it is to catch Moriarty finds herself on the wrong side of the trap.  This takes place post-Hounds of Baskerville and pre-Reichenbach Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The scene looked like a Microsoft default background: a small stone cottage out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but fields of vibrant green grass. Heavy clouds reigned above it, letting in few select rays of sunlight. The scent of morning rain, with more to come later in the evening, lingered in the air. The serene setting was a place of wonder, where you would expect one of the most ardent of nature-lovers to reside.

The one-lane roadway leading to the cottage was almost always clear, except for this particular time of day. A lone Rolls Royce the color of dark chocolate made its away along the driveway, taking its time to reach the cottage. The windows were darkly tinted, hiding the luxurious interior of wood paneling and cream-colored leather. Other than the valet in the front seat, a lone man sat in the backseat, reading a newspaper in a costly well-tailored three-piece suit inside of the luxury car. With every bump or uneven gravel in the roadway, he would tilt his right hand just slightly so as to look at the black and silver Bulgari watch on his wrist. As soon as he felt the car slow to a stop, he folded up the newspaper neatly, set it aside, and stepped out of the car as the valet opened the door for him.

He looked around him, soaking in his environment for it had been ages since he personally had to make a business trip like this. He looked around him at the vast expanse of nothingness, almost reminded of his very own childhood cottage. A shed as large as the lodge itself stood to the side, locked up with no windows. The windows to the cottage were heavily tinted, showing barely any sign of life inside. Although not visible to the naked eye, he also knew that there were dozens of cameras all around the premises, showing every angle and minute detail of the vast expanse of land. This was not a place for ardent nature-lovers or friendly people of any type, but the many ominous No Trespassing signs to even get on this road showed that well enough.

His limbs started to feel unbearably heavy as he began his trek toward the door. As he reached out to knock, he finally noticed how pale he had gotten as of late. He hadn’t the time to look into a mirror, although he would not have been pleased with what he saw. His usually elegant look would be slightly disheveled, although that usually meant a crooked tie or a slight wrinkle in his shirt. Even in his most undone state, his dress was never too badly out of place. It was usually things he couldn’t control that gave away his anxious state – dark bags under his eyes, the paleness and heaviness of his body, and the slight dullness of perception, which was so minute it would have gone unnoticed by any but the most brilliant of minds.

His hand was still up in the air in a knocking gesture, his mind distracted as he was silently trying to pull himself together before he could muster the strength with which to knock, when he started to hear beeps and clicks from the other side, no doubt the sounds of bypassing the countless measures of security placed upon it. The door opened at long last and he was met with a young woman, long messy dark hair flowing down almost the entirety of her torso, a smile on her face of soft features. 

“Two times this year, Mikey? I’m beginning to think you’ve developed a crush on me,” she greeted in a soft, playful voice. She turned around and walked back inside with a flurry of her long black kimono robe with white floral patterns, left open revealing boxer shorts and a tank top.

He was about to protest at the nickname as he was shutting the door when he was met an odor so foul, he had completely forgotten both his witty remark about his name, and her habit of wearing pajamas no matter the time of day. “What is that atrocious smell?” he asked, waving a hand lightly about, not that it helped at all.

She smiled in front of him, leading him through the foyer to the closest room where most would have had their living area. Instead, there remained a room that almost seemed a polar opposite of the exterior of the cottage. There were gadgets on every shelf; electronic beeping and machine fans whirring met his ears from nearly every corner. She sat down in a highly cushioned office chair in front of a large desk that held three monitors, each black with green codes running down them in some technical language, and two keyboards. Despite this, there were at least two laptops and three tablets strewn about the room also.

But because he had been here before and seen the technical wonderment of this room, the first thing he noticed was a thick cloud of smoke hovering above it all. She reached next to her computer monitors at an ashtray and pick up a rolled, lit up cigarette of sorts. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied with a smile, putting it between her lips and taking a long drag.

He curled his lip in disgust at her. Mycroft would have the occasional cigarette, but as a government employee, cannabis was simply out of the question. Even the fact that he remained in the same room with it was making his blood boil, so he closed the distance between them in three long strides and grabbed her above the wrist so tightly that the sound of knuckles cracking broke the dangerous silence. The surprise of the action made her drop it as he proceeded to crush it with the ball of his foot.

“Do you even realize whom you work for?” he seethed through gritted teeth, his face red with anger about an inch from hers. It wasn’t even that he got this angry because he worked for the government. He merely had seen the effects of drugs too much in his lifetime, usually within his own family.

Never before had she seen Mycroft look older, more vulnerable than he did at that moment. She could see every wrinkle around his eyes and mouth, caused by national threats that had no doubt been averted by him. Every sleepless night was carved into his face. Every pain he suffered turned into rage glowed within his iris. “Seems like you need it more than me,” came her hushed response as she ignored the pain she felt within her hand. “What do you need, Mycroft?”

And with the smoothness of her voice saying his name, he felt as if someone pulled him out of a nightmare, back into himself. He quickly let go of her hand and stood up straight, brushing invisible dust off of his suit as he regained his composure. “I don’t want it serving as a distraction,” he stated, turning around to face the window on the far side, using the first excuse that came to mind for his behavior. An apology was unnecessary. Her hand would be fine. Even so he looked out the corner of his eye at her, watching her flex her fingers, just to make sure.

“I keep my personal and business affairs separate. I finished my training before noon today,” she replied, gesturing toward the window where the large shed he previously saw towered. Inside were weights, targets, sandbags, and any other type of machinery required to keep physical endurance and deadly aim at its highest.

While he had his technical gurus, his muscled warriors, and his keen sharpshooters, very few of those under his service had the skill of being all three. While her specialty was in the technical field, she had a high-ranking military background, even at such a young age, catching the attention of those who would use her as a tool for good. She was an asset to any side she was on. The only drawback was that she didn’t want to take sides.

After completing her first vital mission for Mycroft, she fled. For at least a month they had no inkling of where she could be hiding. Her tracks had been covered well. After a while, they had gotten word of a yoga instructor in northern India that sounded suspicious. Another few months confirmed their suspicions and she was brought back, ultimately exiled to work in the most remote of regions where another blunder like that would essentially paint a large target over her head.

“Answer the question, Mycroft. Why are you here?” She curled her legs up on the chair and greeted him with an interested expression when he turned around, all playfulness gone from her demeanor.

“Moriarty.”

Her response was a puzzled stare. “I gave him to you last month.” No response as his gaze lowered. “Mycroft,” she demanded, annoyance (or what that actually anger?) seeping into her voice.

“We had nothing on him. We couldn’t hold him any longer,” came his response, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“You let him go? After all my hard work tracking his movements and you just release him back into society?” she fumed, rising from her chair and pacing back and forth, all senses coming crashing back to her. Her mind went through the copious amount of work she had to do to even find him: tracing certain keywords around the clock, looking at disposable mobile phone purchases, hours upon hours of surveillance footage, not to mention all the fake tips…

His eyes watched her figure panic, not surprised or attempting to make any move to comfort her. On the inside, he was doubly anxious. Not because he had failed in keeping the notorious James Moriarty in his care, but because whatever Jim had planned would be disastrous, not just for England, but his little brother as well. He was not planning on voicing his concerns regarding the latter though. The fact that his target seemed so obsessed with Sherlock to the point of carving his name repeatedly in a concrete cell with his fingernails was cause for alarm, but not relevant to how to find him, so he kept that detail to himself.

“You’ve found him once. A second time won’t be an issue, I’m sure,” he stated nonchalantly, acting as if he was merely talking about catching a fish in a small pond as opposed to a great white shark in the ocean.

She studied him with a thoughtful demeanor and sat back down in her chair, her fingers massaging her temples. “I can find him again…on one condition,” she boldly responded, looking up at him.

His face dropped to a look of half surprise, half fury. Did this instrument that they had created actually think she could give them an ultimatum, as if she had any power to do so whatsoever? The audacity she was showing would not have been handled lightly by anyone else of his standing, but he was desperate. “And what, pray tell, would that be?” he asked, attempting to bottle his rage at the situation.

“I want to be free of this life, once and for all. You will let me live in peace in a location of my choosing. And no matter what you manage to fuck up next time, you will leave me be.” She stressed the last three words as if intertwining a threat within them. Her eyes were stone cold and uninviting, a state that he had only seen on the day they had confined her to this cage.

His eyes searched her face for a while, both sizing her up and weighing the options in his mind. Her job requirements limited applicants greatly. If there were more like her, they had already been hired. There were so little of them left though that losing one meant losing a significant number.

“Very well,” he sighed. Whether or not he intended on keeping his end of the bargain was a whole different story though. He was not usually one to back out of agreements, but when it was a matter of keeping his country safe, there was no doubt in his mind.

She immediately spun her office chair around and began to furiously type away on one of the keyboards, the monitors coming to life with code and files. He took this as his queue to leave and began walking towards the exit. “And one last thing – if I ever catch you with narcotics again-“ he spun around to face her, finding that she already had another cannabis cigarette in hand and was in the process of lighting it.

“You’ll what? Fire me?” she retorted, placing the stick between her lips in smug triumph.

He took a deep breath to hold in his anger once more and continued out the door, the sound of keyboard clicking extinguished with a slam of the door.


	2. Chapter Two

It had been three busy weeks since Mycroft’s visit and she had barely made any progress. Wherever Jim Moriarty had scurried after being released from Mycroft’s clutches, he was certainly trying to stay well hidden. Like Mycroft had presumed, whatever he was planning, it was very discreet, and would be disastrous. If England’s most notorious (and most likely only) consulting criminal wasn’t consulting anymore, no one was safe.

Still, not only in Mycroft’s previous visit but also in their occasional encrypted communications, she could tell he was hiding something. He seemed to get increasingly anxious with every reply and lack thereof. It was almost as if something personal was tied to finding this criminal, leading her to ask, had Moriarty said something to Mycroft in the interrogation that shook her superior down to his core? It was difficult to find the right spot to jab to get a reaction out of him. The only time she had ever seen him lose his resolve was not when she had made her first mistake of being caught by an enemy years ago, nor when she had been recaptured after escaping, but only the last time she had seen him when he almost broke her hand because of a meager amount of marijuana. So whatever Mycroft’s soft spot was, Moriarty had found it.

She had tried asking for the interrogation recordings or a written log but was told that it was on a strict need-to-know basis, and she had no need for that to find him. No amount of arguing could convince them otherwise. Whatever he was planning, it was something that concerned Mycroft personally.

At the current moment, she sat at her work desk going through interrogation records of recently caught criminals when she heard an alert from her third computer screen. She glanced over and saw a lone inconspicuous sedan riding slowly along the roadway toward the cottage. She smiled and stood up, tying her robe closed at the front and proceeding to walk to the door. After going through the actions to open it, she waited outside on the patio for the car to reach her.

“Good morning, Tim!” she called out as a skinny man in a black suit stepped out of the driver’s seat.

“Morning, Emma,” he greeted beaming, walking up to give her a warm hug which she happily returned. “How are you today?” How refreshing it was to be asked that, especially in Timothy’s sincere tone. He walked back over to the car.

“Can’t complain; thanks for asking,” she answered, following him. He started to hand her a couple of brown paper bags.

“I got everything on your list. And perhaps a few extra munchies,” he added with a wink. They carried the groceries into the cold stainless steel kitchen and he helped her to put the items away.

“How are the kids doing?” she asked, starting to put refrigerator items away.

“Ah, they’re wonderful. Charlie’s just begun to walk and Ronalds’s been stirring up a bit of trouble at school, but – ah well, at least he has his health.” He chuckled and pulled out his wallet to show her some of the pictures inside.

She flipped through the pictures grinning widely at Timothy’s family portraits. True love was still keeping pictures of your family in your wallet instead of just as iPhone wallpapers, she thought to herself as she let her eyes scan over a picture of a little boy in a onesie crawling across a grassy yard. “I’d love to meet them some day,” she stated longingly.

He smiled sadly at her as he put the wallet back in his trousers. “I…apologize. Truly, I do.” He rested a hand upon her shoulder warmly.

She returned the pitiful smile. “It’s not your fault. Don’t blame the prison guard, blame the jailer,” she quipped, earning a more earnest smile from him.

Timothy had been her personal servant of sorts throughout her exile. Whenever she needed something from the “outside world,” as she dramatically liked to call it, she would have to have him fetch it for her. She was not yet trusted to leave the premises. Luckily for her, Tim had been far better company than Mycroft and was the only bit of freedom she could ever taste. Ever since their first meeting, they been close and she had lived vicariously through him, relishing his personal stories and longing for what she thought would never be hers.

He sat down for a while longer, talking about his nearing vacation time. His plan was to take the family to Dublin to sightsee. He doted on his trip there before meeting his wife, telling her of the nights when he and his friends used to get pissed in the pub beyond comprehension. Then he asked if she had been there. Of course she hadn’t.

His stories were so grand that even after he had left the feeling of longing he drew out of her lingered in the air for hours afterward. She barely got any work done, her mind wandering to city skylines at night and waterfront apartment buildings. Once it had gotten dark enough, she gave up her workspace to see if moving to her bedroom upstairs could gather her focus. And once that had failed, she gave up for good and called it a night, dreaming of live music and dancing.

It was nearing midnight when a slight rustle was heard from outside. It felt as if the army veteran inside her gripped her by the arm and violently pulled her out of the pub and back into the real world as her eyes snapped open. She strained to hear another sound. After living in complete silence for almost two years now, she knew every single sound she was supposed to hear, so hearing something foreign was cause for alarm.

A few more seconds passed when she heard a faint scrape downstairs. Her mind abandoned any fatigue she may have felt after being woken up so and she sprang into action. She hopped off the bed as quietly and lithely as she could before reaching under her nightstand and withdrawing the handgun she kept taped under. In a few quick movements, she was behind the door, pressing herself against the wall and looking out toward the room.

She heard soft movements headed her way. She had to give the intruder credit; he was making the least amount of sound possible. And the fact that he bypassed all of her security measures also deserved applause, but it more than likely meant he was not alone.

The figure stepped into the room, peering at the empty bed. Before he could process what that could have meant, she stepped out from the shadow of the door and jammed the butt of her gun straight into the man’s cervical nerves in his spinal cord, rendering him unconscious almost immediately. She knelt down and turned him over. He appeared to be a middle-aged gentleman in dark garments that she didn’t recognize. In his hand was a revolver, which she slid under the bed.

Downstairs she heard of a flurry of noises, telling her their plan of a surprise attack failed and now it was time to send in all of their guns. She felt her stomach drop, knowing this would not be an easy battle. After a calming sigh, she hurried back to her hiding position and waited, hearing them scramble up the stairs.

The first guy was quicker than the last, or perhaps the unconscious man gave him away, but his gun immediately swung behind the door to where she was, but being faster than him, she had ducked under the gun, grabbing his hand from the underside as she pushed it up, making him shoot through the ceiling. The second man was just putting his gun up toward her when she reached her trigger first and his brain was pierced with a bullet. Quickly turning around as the first man recuperated, she repeated her shot.

She looked around at the two dead men and one unconscious one feeling drained. It had been too long since she was in the combat field and she had not missed it one bit. Knowing she had taken two lives today, potentially three seeing as how the third man would most likely suffer complete paralysis because of the blow, made her nauseous. But even so, she had to pull herself together and make it downstairs to her work desk to send an encrypted email to get her to the hell out of here. With the defenses down, this place, and even she, was far too vulnerable.

She grabbed her handgun and proceeded to walk down the stairs slowly and quietly, still listening for any unknown sound. When she reached her workroom, she had found that the items had not been tampered with. Knowing how difficult it was to bypass the security, they must have known it would have been damn near impossible to log into her database without her. It was capture first, information later.

She set the handgun down on the table before beginning her login process. She had barely gotten past the first screen when she heard a slight creak immediately behind. She reached for the gun, but it was too late. A hand reached out and a handkerchief was pressed to her nose and mouth from behind, clouding her mind with the fumes of chloroform before her consciousness fled from her entirely.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy St. Patrick's Day! (Yes, I know I'm probably too late for a lot of you.)  
> And a general warning: this chapter gets violent.

_Pain_.

It was as if something had crawled into her brain and was smashing the walls about with a mace. It was both throbbing and stabbing; constant and yet more came in spurts as if someone had set it to increase like clockwork. And as if that weren’t already enough, a light slowly began to grow brighter as her consciousness crept back, despite her willing it to stay dormant. At least she couldn’t feel when she was still knocked out.

The brightness was soon too much to handle, contributing to her pain. Ever so slowly, her eyes fluttered open as she forced herself to adjust to it and focus. Clarity began to seep in as what was once just the vision of light around began to dissolve and she could make out her location. Her head stopped swimming, and although the pain from the light was gone, whatever else was coursing through her still assailed her from within.

The first thing she saw in front of her was a wall the colour of…was that a light purple? As her eyes adjusted more, she saw that it looked like lilacs in the springtime, making her wonder just where the hell she actually was – a dungeon or a child’s bedroom?

The answer quickly revealed itself as she tried to move and found that she was unable to do so. In fact, she was mostly numb from her neck down. She hadn’t previously noticed as the searing pain in her head kept her well distracted, but now it was clear that it was the only sensation she _could_ feel in her body. She looked down and saw that she was sitting upright in a wooden chair, her wrists tightly bound to the chair’s arms by a thick rope. She couldn’t see them, but she felt that her ankles were similarly tied to the chair’s legs, the silken robe she was still wearing unable to prevent the rope from digging into her skin. Having had blood flow cut off from those extremities and being in a sitting position for however long she was, it was no wonder she couldn’t feel her body.

She let out a heavy disheartened sigh and threw her head back, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself. As she opened them, she saw that the room wasn’t completely bare – in the top right corner of the room was a small black circular object which revealed itself as a camera with its dim red light. Knowing that her captor was watching her every move, she knew her next actions would be key to making a bold first impression. So she did the first thing that came to her aching mind.

“ _You see a pair of laughing eyes_ ,” she sings, mostly to the camera, but also because as soon as she does so, her focus has lessened on her throbbing head. “ _And suddenly you’re sighing sighs. You think nothing’s wrong. You string along, boy, then snap_!”

She heard a door open directly behind her, a place where her peripheral vision failed.

“ _Those eyes, those sighs, they’re part of the tender trap_ ,” she finishes, as the footsteps come around to finally end directly in front of her. A large, muscular man stood in front of her in black slacks and black cotton tee shirt. His blond hair shone in the bright light and his fierce light-coloured eyes bore into her own.

“Good evening, Emma,” his gruff voice greeted, a slight German accent audible. The voice was incredibly disconcerting to her, but she kept her straight face and flashed a dim smile for him. “I will highly recommend that you cooperate from this point on.” His accent was far more discernable than it previously been, indicating that this particular sentence was uttered often in his line of work, and he had simply gotten used to saying it the way it was. “Let’s start with an easy one we both know the answer to: who is your employer?

She grinned a little more widely. “Not a fan of Sinatra, then?”

And then suddenly more pain as the man lashed his knuckles hard against her jaw. Her dry bottom lip cracked open and the ringing in her skull significantly intensified. It would definitely bruise, but left her jaw mostly in tact. Of course he did; they still needed her to talk.

“Are we done with the wise cracks yet?” he asked, rolling the ring on his dominant hand around to show just how much pain he had the capacity to cause.

She tried her hardest to push the pain from her mind and muster up a smile as she responded, “Guess not. You seem more of the Rammstein type.”

Another hard lash across the opposite cheek, and this time she felt the cold sting of his ring along with every single knuckle on his hand.

“Such loyalty to a team that left you with nothing.”

She spit out some of the blood that had begun to pool in her mouth. “I’ve saved lives. And how many have you taken?” She looked up at him defiantly. “Imagine if it had been your life in danger. Or your partner’s.” She nodded at the gold ring he was currently stroking.

Her eyes pierced his and in her defiance, he saw neither anger nor pain, merely understanding. He was taken aback more by her sincerity than her words. His brows furrowed as he began to think about what his next step was. It took a few seconds for him to come to.

Without a second glance at her, he began walking to the door. Perhaps hunger and dehydration would weaken her resolve upon their next meeting.

“Don’t forget to wipe the blood from your ring,” she called after him as he was switching it back to his left hand. And then she was alone with her pain once more.

 

The glaring lights remained on as she drifted in and out of sleep. Every time her face or bound limbs began to throb, she would close her eyes. If sleep could not come to her, she could find peace in memory.

She thought back to her few months of escape. She found herself high in the mountains of northern India, surrounded by greenery, monasteries, and little else. Nobody went there to live a luxurious life, to go about making business deals in a rush, even to eat their heart out on vacation. It wasn’t some beach resort with wailing children about and beer-drinking competitions. It was to escape all that. It was a spa without all the unnecessary products and activities. It was a place solely for the mind.

It took her about a month to get settled in, to get used to the place and buy her own studio to hold yoga sessions, which there was definitely not a lack of in the area. But people came to her nonetheless because she was kind. Perhaps it was because the atmosphere was so new to her, her gratefulness to just be alive in this paradise radiated to everyone who met her. She learned to have patience, to block out the outside world, to have a soft-spoken voice so as to calm even a newly bankrupt company’s CEO. That was her own personal heaven, and whenever she found herself in emotional turmoil, like from being so confined to a cottage and having little to no human contact, or even physical, as she did now, she would let her mind wander to this place, forgetting all else.

She was in one of her dazes from pain and hunger when she heard the door open behind her. The man came to her front when she realized it was not the same one from yesterday at all. He had similar clothing with added latex gloves and had longer shaggy blonde hair with a skinnier frame. He reminded her of weasel. “Is the other guy on vacation leave?” she asked weakly, still managing to muster up a smile for the new one.

Surprisingly, he smiled back, but it was wicked and tinged with malice. “He seemed to grow a liking to you so I volunteered to take over,” the Welshman revealed. She didn’t dare to think what that could have meant for the other man. He slowly began walking toward her and grabbed her bruised jaw tightly, making her feel the pain ten times more than it ever had been. “It’s okay though. I promise we’ll have just as much fun.”

She ground her teeth through the pain, looking up at him. “That’s it? I’ve had first dates worse than that.”

This earned a chuckle from him as he let go of her. He bent down so that his face was but an inch from hers. “I see why Alex liked you. He likes his women with a sense of humor.”

“And you?”

His grin widened. “I like the tough ones. The ones who single-handedly wipe out three highly trained assassins in a matter of seconds.” She smiled proudly. “I have to admit, Mycroft’s pets keep getting better and better.” After seeing her smile replaced with a look of confusion, he chuckled once more. “You think you’re the first? No, no, no.” He clicked his tongue in disapproval, retreating from her as he began to pace around the room. “We’ve caught dozens. Or has he not told you that? Pity. I bet he’s surprised you lasted as long as you did.”

Now she understood why they had sent this man instead of the previous man. The latter’s job was to physically break her, but they quickly realized that was not happening. Her high pain tolerance plus her own psychological tricks were going to get them nowhere. No, they had to get her into a delusional state before beginning to manipulate her. This man wasn’t just hired muscle like the last guy. He was here to break her in any way possible.

Still, she kept her head held high and responded, “If you’re here to convince me to hate Mycroft, consider the job done before we even had the pleasure to cross paths. But I do respect him and the work he does. So if you’re expecting me to reveal anything to you, you’re going down a dead end.”

“I see,” he stated, in exaggerated disappointment. He began walking towards the door and when it slammed shut, she released a sigh of relief. But her hopes had soon been sullied as it opened and shut once more. He appeared back in her path, this time holding what she saw was a severed head. He let the recognition settle in on her face before throwing it down to the floor by her feet.

Instant nausea battered her like a freight train. If it were possible, she looked even paler under the lights as she stared down at the head, trying her hardest to suppress not only regurgitation, but sobbing also.

Looking up at her was Tim’s head, who was the last friendly face she ever saw, and in fact the only friendly face she would go months without seeing usually. His eyes held no laughter like they usually did. Instead, pale eyelids covered them, a skin tone that matched the rest of the head down to the neck where blood glistened brightly under the fluorescent bulbs. Her mind raced to his wife, his children in the photos he last showed her and how happy they all were. Their last conversation about Dublin repeated in her mind.

“He didn’t…he didn’t need to die,” she slowly choked out, looking clearly ill as her eyes finally tore away from the head.

“On the contrary, he knew the security measures and layout of your little premises. He proved very useful. And he’s proving useful yet again.” He flashed another toothy grin. “As you can see now though, I’m done fucking around.” In two quick strides, he was upon the index finger on her hand, which he quickly and ferociously pulled all the way back. She threw her head back and let out a scream as her finger broke with a snap. “Tell me the password to your hardware _now_.”

She closed her eyes tightly and thought of how her yoga studio had a balcony, which she would often open up during sessions to let the sunlight provide some natural heat to their bodies.

The middle finger was the next to be broken as he continued to shout at her.

She gritted her teeth and thought about how the sound of children laughing and playing street sports would often serve as ambient music to their ears.

The ring finger was next.

Tears streamed down her face as she watched the sun set behind the mountain and ate a plate of curried vegetables that made her place smell like turmeric and chili powder for days afterward.

The pinky finger made her head start swimming and she knew she was going to lose consciousness soon.

A fading memory of the taste of pistachio ice cream drifted in and out of her mind.

She was brought back into consciousness by the final one: her thumb. She was violently shaking in her chair at this point, unable to be comforted by any experience she had ever had. At this point, she prayed for death.

Her prayers were answered as the man let out a frustrated sigh and whipped her across the face out of anger. Thankfully, her pain limit was an all-time high and she had barely felt it. “ _You useless cunt_!” he screamed into her face. “It’s pointless keeping you alive now.”

She heard his footsteps walking directly behind her, feeling his presence lingering. Soon enough, his hands found her throat, the latex being able to get a tight grip despite her sweat. The hands began to clench and she soon found herself struggling for air. A few more seconds and all her pain left her. Tiny white dots began to appear in her vision and her consciousness began to drift away. She was thankful for the release when all of a sudden, the hands let go and she came out gasping for air.

As her sense came back to her, she felt the throbbing in her hand once more and the shaking started up, but her mind was distracted. She heard a second pair of footsteps behind her, and one of her captors left the room. She found herself dreaming of death again as she heard the steps approach her.

“Do you like the colour of the walls? I’ve _just_ had them repainted,” a high-pitched voice began. “The old colour got a bit…dirty. I could have used a darker colour, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for pastels.” He stepped into her field of vision and then directly in front of her. She had to shake some of her falling locks of hair out of her face as her eyes slowly began to drift up from the floor, first to the fine leather Italian shoes, then the light grey suit pant and matching jacket, to a light yellow tie, and then across his amused face, finally resting at the dark pools that were his eyes. “I’d introduce myself, but…well, you already know more about me than just about anyone else.”


	4. Chapter Four

            “M…Moriarty,” she struggled out, barely above a whisper as she dropped her head back again, unable to hold it up any longer.  What little energy she possibly had after all her fingers were broken on one hand escaped her after having been strangled.  It was as if death was cheated in that moment and took everything but her life.

            She couldn’t see his reaction but she knew a smile had appeared on his face. “Jim.  I insist.  Always a pleasure to meet a fan,” he said sardonically, kicking the severed head on the ground away as he approached her.  He squatted down to meet her eyes.  “Emma Marin.  Hard to find anything on you.  Even Timothy over there knew almost nothing.  But it was still enough to save your life.”

            She curiously tilted her head up to look into his eyes.  She didn’t know where this was headed, but it was sure to bode ill for her.  His smile widened as he reached out to touch the top of her shattered hand. Her trembling intensified as she saw him pull out a Swiss Army knife.  She turned away, unable to look at what he had in store for her next.  But to her surprise, she felt a sudden freedom in her limb.  She quickly turned back to his hands to see him cut away her restraints.

            “We can prove very useful to one another.  _Quid pro quo_ , right?” he said, the last sentence uttered very quietly an inch from her each. It made her shudder, feeling like Clarice from the Silence of the Lambs, except with herself locked up and Hannibal glaring hungrily at her.

            “I already told your men that you’re not getting Mycroft from me,” her raspy, dry voice responded.

            He chuckled as he reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear substance.  “It’s not Mycroft I want.”  He slid the needle into her forearm, her own body too weak to pull away. “Sweet dreams,” was the last thing she heard before exhaustion began to seep in.  Jim’s smiling face began to blur and was soon disappearing under the heavy veil of sleep that was instantly pulled over her.

 

            Light flowed in through her closed eyelids to awaken her from her slumber once more.  At first she thought she was in the same room and she mentally cursed those fluorescent bulbs. But something felt different this time.  It was far more relaxed than she had felt in what seemed like years in that dungeon.

            She opened her eyes, struggling to awaken her brain as well, still groggy from whatever Jim had injected into her bloodstream.  As awake as she possibly could be at the moment, she sat up and found herself on a king sized bed under a fluffy duvet comforter. At first she thought she was dreaming as her mind was still hazy, but she found that it wasn’t the case. Her right hand was bound completely in a thick white cast and she no longer felt the pain, but a full bottle of painkillers on the black nightstand next to her seemed to be the cause of that.

            She looked around the room and found it was as large as the entire first floor of her own little cottage.  Most of it was empty space though, other than the large bed with dark gray satin sheets, her nightstand, and a black desk with a computer desktop upon it. Next to her was the source of light – a window that took up an entire wall, showing the beautiful day that lay beyond. The scenery was similar to her cottage though, as nothing could be seen but yards of empty grassland.

            She repeatedly tried to shake off the heavy fatigue that filled her body and swung her legs over the bedside.  Still in the same filthy robe she was wearing the day she was captured, the only difference she could see was scarred bruising on her wrists and ankles from her restraints.  She held onto the bed as she attempted to stand, having been out of practice for what she was sure was at least a week.  After getting some of her strength back, she weakly limped over to the desk with the computer on it and attempted to turn out.  It remained unresponsive.  She looked all around, made sure it was plugged in, everything was hooked up and yet again no response.  She threw her fist down on the keyboard in frustration and looked around the room again.

            There were two doors along the wall that she had just noticed. She hurriedly hobbled over to the one opposite the window and found it to be locked from the outside. She went to the second door, which opened easily and revealed a clean backroom with white tiles, white marble vanity and sink area, shower, bathtub, everything.  Brand new product of every type lined the vanity and on its matching chair sat a folded up piece of silk.  She held it up and saw it was a brand new robe, a similar style to the one she was wearing.  Thinking of Mycroft’s snide comments, she couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what everyone considered to be her staple style.

            Seeing no other option, and being able to smell and feel the days-old sweat and blood on her body, she turned the shower on and hopped in, careful to avoid getting water on her cast and using only her non-dominant hand to do the washing. This had not been her first experience in waiting for broken bones to heal.

            After drying herself off and putting on her robe, she stepped out of the bathroom and jumped in surprise at seeing a figure against the daylight in front of the window.  She felt herself go cold again as he turned around to face her.

            “Healing well?” he asked, slowly walking toward her.  He was in a darker suit than the one she last saw him in with a dark red tie.  He must have just been at a special meeting to look so intimidating.

            “Well enough,” she responded, before noticing the next addition to the room: a wheeled cart upon which was a jug a water, a fruit platter, some bread, and cheese.  She wasted no time to dwell on Jim as she began downing glass after glass of water. Her hunger could wait, but thirst left her about ready to start drinking the shower water moments ago.

            “You’re probably wondering why you’re still alive and why you’re _here_ ,” he began, sitting on the edge of her bed facing her. She responded with an interested look as she popped a grape in her mouth.  “I need you to find certain…information for me.”

             “Have you tried Google?” she asked, sarcastically.  This earned a light chuckle from him. “Mr. Moriarty, I explicitly remember you saying we could help _each other_ out.  If this-“ she opened her arms to indicate this room “-is what you offer as payment, I decline. Kill me, if you must, but I’m not going from being someone’s bitch to being someone worse’s bitch.”

            He clicked his tongue in disappointment.  “And I thought your life would be sufficient payment. Kids these days. Nothing’s ever enough,” he mocked, a fake exaggerated frown on his face that made her involuntarily roll her eyes at his dramatic manner of speech.  “Luckily for you, I can give you what you actually want.” He stood up and slowly walking toward her, stopping just when he was looming over her figure. “Your little friend disclosed that all you want is freedom.  Little birdie just wants to be free of her cage, am I right?  One small favor and I can give you that. Just look at how long it took you to find me. 

            Her eyes ran over his face, studying it to see what she should make of the offer.  She was tempted, but enough to trust Jim Moriarty? Then again, he seemed more sincere than Mycroft.  It was unfortunate that a consulting criminal’s promise held more credibility in her mind than a major employee of the English government’s.

            Seeing her hesitate, he continued.  “Don’t worry.  It’s not like I’m asking you to kill someone.  Not that you would mind,” he added with a smug look.

            “And what exactly do you mean by that?” she asked, taken aback by the snide comment.

            “Oh, come on.  Not exactly a secret, is it?  Military from a young age, despite a wealthy upbringing.  Outstanding service at the academy.  I’m the last person you should hide your… _bloodlust_ from,” he uttered, taking a lock of her hair and twirling it around his finger.

            She slapped his hand away from her and took a step toward. “I’ve changed.”

            “ _Someone’s in denial_ ,” he sang out. “But that’s besides the point. I’ll get you your precious freedom.  All I want in return is everything you can find on Sherlock Holmes.”

            She stepped back, unsure of what she had just heard.  “ _Sherlock_ Holmes?  That would be Mycroft’s…”

            “You’ll find out soon enough.”

             “And what makes you think I’ll take the job?” 

            “Curiosity.” She scoffed.  “Or I just kill you now.”

            She studied his face once more, weighing her options in her mind. This is what she always wanted, no?  And all he wanted was someone’s life story in return.  No violence, no risks, and then she would be free to roam the world on her own, doing whatever she pleased with whomever she liked.

            “You have yourself a deal,” she finally said.

            He smiled and took his phone out.  With one tap, the computer on the desk came to life. “Good.  I want everything you can find.  His own phone records, records of people referring to him, previous clients, cases, everything.” 

            “Except Mycroft’s, of course,” she warned. 

            “Of course.  You can go on protecting your little master,” he mocked with his usual grin.  With that, he turned and left the room, leaving just the liveliness of the machine on the desk for company.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains smut and a bit of violence.  
> Sorry you guys had to wait 5 chapters for this! But as Bach couldn't cope with an unfinished melody, I can't cope with undeveloped characters. Enjoy!

            Her workload didn’t prove to be too difficult; just very tedious.  It was incredibly dull to compile phone records that served of some importance while others seemed more spam than anything.  But she couldn’t complain.  It’s not like she hadn’t been doing all this to gain information on Moriarty all these years. 

            At one point she had attempted to track down her location, but there must have been a GPS scrambler in the complex because she couldn’t even get a signal.  Even if she could somehow contact her intelligence team, she’d have no idea what to say.  She was sure that she wasn’t the only operative looking for Moriarty. And if none had found him now, she doubted they would any time soon. 

            She had no visitors for several days, except for the same man who would roll in a cart of food and drink for her twice a day.  It was like being locked in a hotel room all day where she had to whore out her technical skills. It was an incredibly familiar feeling for her. 

            It was the evening of what she thought was the fifth day since her arrival in this room when she heard the door open behind her.  She turned to see a more casual version of the Jim Moriarty she was used to. He wore dark slacks and a white v-neck tee, and in his hand were two glasses with an amber liquid filled halfway. 

            “Good evening,” he began lazily. He walked over to her desk and set down one of the glasses in front of her.  “Brought you a little present.”

            She stood up so she was more his height level and pushed the chair to the side.  “Thank you,” she politely replied before gulping back the entirety of what was sure to have been an expensive aged scotch.  She forgot she had taken painkillers earlier in the day and the alcohol hit her way harder than it should have.  He smirked and did the same.  “And I’ve got some presents for you,” she continued, trying to ignore her intoxication and turning away from him to open up a few files she had saved.  “So far I’ve got most of his cases, a good deal of background, and I’m working my way up to his current affairs.” 

            He squinted as he scanned the screen in front of her, as the soft glow of the computer monitors was the only light source in the room now that it was completely dark outside.  “And how long will that take?” he distractedly asked. 

            “About a week more.”

            Jim’s eyes seemed to grow darker with exhilarated hunger as he stared at the screen before them, taking in every juicy detail as if it were a succulent supper he was about to devour as a last meal.  She curiously gazed upon his reaction, watching as the tip of his tongue grazed across his slightly parted lips, not sure how to react with his fascination.  Knowing these next few moments would be incredibly vital, she forced herself to regain her focus and noticed something make a slight reflection in her peripheral vision.  Looking down, it appeared to be the familiar handle of his black Swiss Army knife sticking out of the pocket of his trousers. Seeing an opportunity, she quickly looked back to his face to make sure he was fully engrossed in the documents before him before slowly reaching towards the object without disturbing its owner.  As soon as her fingers reached the smooth handle, she pulled it out of his pocket and pulled at the knife portion as quickly as she could.  In half a second, she had flipped Jim Moriarty around to face her, cold knife pressed against his jugular in one fluid motion, his head pressed downward between the knife and desk.

            His surprise immediately dissolved into an entertained grin.  She could have sworn his eyes grew darker but she didn’t think it possible. If anything, they had been unchanged from the starved look moments ago.

            “Impressive!  But I can’t help but feel a tad disappointed,” he voiced.  One of his hands shot up to hers, gripping tightly and slowly putting pressure down on the knife, sliding it across his skin to leave nothing but a thin line of glistening red fluid in its wake.

            She stared at the cut he left there with her lips slightly parted, feeling a strange...longing, was it? The boldness of his action caught her off-guard.  Perhaps he was right about her inherent but subdued bloodlust.  Or perhaps that was just his way of psychologically manipulating her to his advantage.  Either way, she couldn’t help but feel a lascivious pull toward this man’s bold move; this man, who she had spent over two years trying to find and have killed, and he was presenting her the opportunity to do so on an extravagant platter. And yet even as those cold eyes dared her to make a more fatal move, her mind had already been made up. 

            “Go on,” that Irish accent suggested to her with a knowing grin and she knew it was more a demand than anything.  She drew the knife to his lower abdomen, making the tip of it graze upon his happy trail underneath his shirt before jerking forward, ripping the delicate fabric of his cotton tee.  She moved up with similar movements to the very top, where the shirt opened to welcome her to his torso.  She slipped the torn fabric over his shoulder and slid her right arm over his frame, her left dropping the knife onto the desk and sliding it through his smooth hair.

            She was close enough to feel his breath upon her lips when he suddenly grabbed her hips and spun her around, pinning her between his own hips and the desk. She felt his ragged breath on her neck caused by his hardness against her backside.  As soon as his lips touched the delicate spot where her shoulder and neck met, she let out a longing sigh.  It had been too long.  Far too long since she had had the touch of another body pressed against her skin, breath drawn upon her neck, fingertips running down the sides of body. 

            He wrapped his arm around her front, pulling upon the loose bow that held her ensemble together.  It fell apart from the center before Jim’s hands slid it from her shoulders, brushing his fingers against them before following the trail with his lips. When her robe her slipped down to the ground, his fingers unhurriedly moved to her front, his fingertips brushing against the underside of her breasts.  As his lips moved up her neck, his hands moved up her chest, until his mouth reached her jaw line and his fingertips reached the dark areolas around her nipples.  He made sure to reach both her lips with his own and her nipples with his fingertips at the same time.

            The first instance she felt his touch on her nipples, her mind had shattered as if he had sedated her once more.  The movement was so slow and particular; she felt every ridge of his thumb’s fingertip brush against one of the most sensitive spots on her body. The movement continued in light, circular motions around the tip of her nipple as his lips sucked the edge of hers, making her turn her head to devote her own attention to them.

            The slow touch of his lips and tantalizing movement of his fingers threw her by surprise.  She didn’t expect someone like Jim Moriarty to go at a leisurely pace.  Then again, there was no one else like Jim Moriarty. She had no idea what to expect. 

            He brought her nipple in between his index finger and thumb and pressed into a gentle squeeze, forcing her to pull away from his lips to let a soft moan. He grinned wickedly, seeing the response the small amount of pleasure and pain brought her. It was so interesting to him how some people made the same sounds they did when they were dying or in immense pain as they did when they were feeling the most pleasurable stimulations throughout their body.  It excited him to hear the sound in either context, and made him crave more.  He wanted to hear her _scream_. He wanted to see her throw her head back without restraint like she had done when her fingers were shattered. He wanted to feel her quiver beneath him like she had when he had touched her after nearly being asphyxiated to death.

            While one hand began to unfasten his trousers, the other travelled its way down the front of her torso right between her thighs, feeling the moistness from just outside her slit.  He knew he was right about her: she just couldn’t stay away from new, exhilarating experiences as much as she wanted to believe she could get accustomed to a boring life.  But he would let her figure that out on her own.  This was not the time to discuss his psychoanalysis.

            Deciding he was ready and through waiting, he pushed her legs farther apart with his own, adjusting and slowly guiding himself into her.  He had barely heard her sigh of relief, his mind focusing on how her tight inner muscles began to adapt to him.  He found it hard to contain his own sigh, feeling her close around him. 

            He began his slow, tantalizing thrusts, hearing her sighs grow louder and louder until they were minute moans.  It wasn’t good enough for him though.  This wasn’t enough to make her cry out in ecstasy. 

            His thrusts soon became hard and rough, practically throwing her hipbones into the edge of the desk with every maneuver.  She soon found her face pressed up against the desk, Jim’s hand having pushing her back all the way down until her rear was fully exposed and he could thrust his entirety of himself into her.  Now this was the type of sex she had expected from him. 

            At this point, her moans were comparable to someone who was being punched repeatedly in the stomach.  And yet that wasn’t enough for him.  But as he looked down, he saw tiny droplets of crimson fall upon her sweaty back. Realizing it was from the cut on his throat, and growing increasingly greedy, a thought formed in his mind.

            Almost too vigorously, he grabbed a fistful of her hair from her scalp and pulled her body upright into his. He couldn’t tell if her sudden wail was from pleasure or pain, but that was the point, wasn’t it? His hand began working his way down her torso. Once he reached his destination, he parted her lips with his index and ring fingers, letting his ring finger stroke downward as slowly as it could, while still plunging into her.

            “Oh, fuck!” she yelled out in a higher-pitched voice, throwing her head back to allow him to pull her head farther back from her hair. He was correct once again, finding that her gravitation toward pleasure and pain inflicted at the same time would elicit just the response he wanted.  But this wasn’t close to what he had planned.  Oh, no. 

            “Thought you didn’t like violence?” he asked arrogantly in between thrusts.

            She let out shaky chuckle, sighing out, “I don’t.” 

            So she was still in denial.  “Let’s see if we can’t change that…” He reached for the knife she had previously discarded and ran the cold blade up and down the front of her stomach, resting finally in the middle of her ribcage on her left side. Her breath became hitched and anticipation rung in the air for his next action.  He dug the blade into her side, drawing a horizontal line less than an inch wide.  Another moan followed that could have been caused by either his continued rough thrusting or his carving of her flesh.

            Another line etched but this time in a curved manner earned another moan, one of her hands falling to the side of his thigh and digging her sharp fingernails into it.  This earned more straight lines in the same area, almost all in different directions. The finger on her clit began to rub harder as he carved his last line.  This was more than enough as her mind all of a sudden succumbed to the blinding satisfaction that had long been building up inside her. She collapsed forward, clutching onto the edge of the desk as her inner muscles pulsated around him, her shaky screams filling the quiet room. 

            He continued plunging into her, having gotten just what he wanted and now out for his own contentment. She was bent over before him, a slight bit of blood on her back.  Recovering herself quickly enough, she pushed the computer keyboard off the desk before pulling away and turning around to face him. Before he could even protest to her action, she drew herself onto the desk, wrapped her legs around his torso and wrenched him into her once more. 

            As he appreciated her bold move in his mind, she leaned back upon her elbows, giving him an entire frontal view of herself, including his own artwork. There, upon her upper body right atop her ribs, blood trickled down from a perfectly carved _JM_ in her skin.  Seeing his masterpiece before him, he leaned forward, pushing hard into her as his own buildup exploded in violent satisfaction.

            He collapsed onto her body, both of their breathing too rapid to for their senses to come back to them.  Weariness (or perhaps the scotch) had hit them both to the point of utter exhaustion. 

            Feeling the sensation flowing through his very bones, Jim stood upright, grabbing Emma by the waist and pulling her toward him.  After a brief rough kiss, he pulled her forward as her legs found the strength to wrap around his waist once more.  He picked her up like this and carried her to the bed, practically throwing her down and, much to her surprise, collapsing next to her.  She was far too drowsy to question it, as the scotch mixed with her painkillers had weighed both her mind and body down.  Without another glance at the naked psychopath next to her, she found herself submitting to the sex coma that was looming above them both.

 


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another smut/violence warning!

            Sunlight from the clear spring day poured into the room, shining upon the mess inside.  Droplets of blood had dried upon a computer desk to the side, next to a Swiss Army knife with the blade still out and two empty crystal glasses.  Upon the floor nearby lay a jumble of clothes and an upside down keyboard.  The scene was either one of crime, or one of passion.  But the two naked figures that lay on the bed cleared up that mystery. 

            It was the extreme dryness in her mouth that first irritated her beyond sleep as her eyes began to open and she forced her senses to come back to her. Despite a heavy soreness throughout her body, she sat up and felt around her nightstand to find her bottle of water while her eyes still adjusted to the light in the room. After downing half the bottle, the first thing her eyes were able to focus upon was the computer desk in front of the bed and she felt a sudden stab of nausea and regret. She slowly turned her head next to her and felt the nausea intensify tenfold as her eyes fell upon the form of Jim Moriarty still asleep next to her. 

            She quickly averted her eyes, as if her gaze could awaken him at any instant. As slowly as she could so as to keep the bed from shifting too quickly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, grabbing a fist full of the silken sheets to cover her front up with. 

            And yet it wasn’t enough as the weight on the bed began to alter, followed by the deeper breaths one takes as he is waking from a blissful slumber. She ruefully closed her eyes as if she had just awoken a dragon and was preparing (or was it hoping?) to be burnt to ashes. 

            “What a night,” he said in the middle of a large yawn.  “Don’t you agree?”  She responded by taking another sip from her water bottle and replacing it on the nightstand, avoiding his gaze although she felt his eyes taking in her every move.  “Oh, don’t be like that!  I thought we made _such_ a special connection last night.”

            She suppressed a strong urge to slap him across the face as she was in no mood for his snide comments today.  Instead, she placed a hand upon the edge of the bed to help her up, planning on taking a shower and praying to whatever higher authority was out there that Jim was gone by the time she got back.  Before she lifted herself up off the bed however, Jim’s hand flew out quickly and caught her by the wrist in a tight grip.

            “ _Wait_.” 

            It wasn’t his hold that made her freeze; it was the manner in which he spoke that one word.  All humor was gone from his voice, replaced with a deadly tone she dare not ignore.

            What made him stop her was something he had not noticed in the exhilaration the night before: faint blemishes on her back that only appeared when the sunlight hit it a certain way, darkening certain spots.  He began to lightly run his fingers over those grooves and along her spine.  They appeared to be chemical burns.  They had been healing well, so it must have happened not more than four or five years ago.

            “Don’t tell me your fellow MI6 buddies are kinkier than me,” he finally said, his sardonic tone back in action.

            She swallowed hard, thinking about whether to tell the truth or not.  It’s not like it mattered.  Scars like that didn’t happen accidentally.

            “This isn’t the first time I’ve been caught. Usually it ends up worse than a few broken bones,” she answered absentmindedly, allowing him to feel each and every indentation and forcing her mind to focus on the monstrosity of his past actions so as to avoid temptation similar to last night’s. “So it’s more like there are other torturers better at their job than you.”  She had no idea why she had made that last remark. Perhaps she was hoping he’d lash out her, ultimately giving her the punishment she so rightly deserved for her dire regret.

            She felt the weight on the bed shift as he sat up and she closed her eyes, preparing for whatever he had in store for her.  He felt her hand slide from her back down to her upper thigh, maintaining slow, calculated movements. As his hand started running up her inner thigh and she felt his body brushing against her back, almost every muscle in her body clenched, willing her mind to maintain control and reject his intrusion.

            “And what became of him?” he asked, his mouth closer to her ear than she thought.  As he brushed his thumb across her part, she clutched the bed sheets tighter in her hand and pursed her lips, focusing entirely on making sure she made no noticeable responses to his touch.

            “He…” she began, but her mind clouded over the second his thumb repeated its movement, pressing inward just slightly. “Witness protection,” was all she was able to get out in between her deep breaths to reorient herself.

            He understood right away. He ratted out his fellow criminals and landed himself an easy way out of punishment, rendering his crimes excusable. No wonder she held such a grudge against Mycroft.

            “You know what I would have done?” he asked her softly in her ear.  “I would have _skinned_ him, limb from limb.”  He pushed his index and middle fingers into her, feeling the way her body was clearly betraying her mind, and bringing some of her moisture to her clit.  “I would have turned him into a rug to put in front of my fireplace.”  He pressed down on her most sensitive spot and shattered all thoughts of restraint as she finally let out a whimper.  “And then…then I’d cut up his organs and string a fucking violin with them,” he whispered almost savagely into her shoulder, biting and sucking upward along her neck toward her ear.  “Perhaps play you a little Vivaldi with them…”

            As his fingers ran over and over the bundle of nerves, her inhibitions fled her entirely, leaving nothing but the needs and desires of her body.  She found that her legs had almost naturally widened for him and her grip of the sheets covering her upper body had been abandoned, leaving her front almost entirely exposed.

            “I never pegged you as the romantic type,” she managed to let in between soft moans, earning a light chuckle as he took her earlobe into his mouth and lightly sucked.

            As his fingers alternated between rubbing up and down and circular around her and her moans became louder and louder, she felt the slow buildup of her oncoming pleasure.  She leaned herself into his touch and tilted her head back knowing how close she was to release.  Just as she felt she was almost there, he removed himself from her entirely, making her feel as if he had never been there at all and it was all just some unsatisfying dream.

            Jim grabbed a fistful of hair by her scalp and pulled it back, forcing a pained cry from her.  “There’s _no one_ better at this than me,” he sneered into her ear, referring back to her comment on his sub-par torture techniques.

            He let go of her hair and swung his legs over the side of the bed also, preparing to make his exit when her anger got the best of her.  She let her animalistic instinct take over and turned around, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulled his back onto the mattress, straddling his hips and holding her casted hand tightly against windpipe, ignoring the pain that shot up through the entirety of her arm.

            His response was a lighthearted chuckle. “We both know you won’t kill me” he managed to choke out since the pressure wasn’t enough to block too much of his breathing.

            “That wasn’t my intention,” she whispered back, letting her other hand wander down to grab hold of his manhood, which was rigid underneath her touch.  Of course he got off on the dangerous and unpredicted actions of others. And for some reason, it turned her on also as she ran her knuckles down his shaft and saw him close his eyes to feel the way her skin slid along his.  She adjusted herself before sinking down onto him.

            As she felt him slide into her, all thoughts of her regrets faded.  She hated herself for being attracted to him; she was on the good side, after all. But here was the man she had studied for years, trying to get into his head and perhaps heart, if he had one, and figuring out what _drove_ him, what made him become this way.  And during that process, he had somehow figured her out, finding that they were essentially the two sides of the same coin, and knowing she could be so easily manipulated.  She felt the rising darkness within her that she had worked so hard to destroy, but it felt _so good_.

            She glided her body from his shaft to the tip over and over, slowly but thoroughly making sure she felt every minute detail of him inside of her.  His eyes were tightly shut and his mouth hung open, releasing his own groans of appreciation.  She could tell he loved every second as his hands gripped at her backside tightly and his body glistened with tiny droplets of sweat.  It became harder to grip him so she dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades.  Despite his high pain tolerance, she felt his grip tighten around her ass, and she couldn’t help but feel a little smug about the fact that Jim Moriarty had to brace himself at times while around her.

            One of his hands moved back behind him and pushed his torso up so that he was in a seated position while she continued to ride him, moving a bit faster now that she felt his skin rub over her clit with every thrust.  He opened his eyes and looked up at her with a devilish smirk before moving his mouth over her breast, letting his tongue lightly flick her nipple.  This earned a sharp intake of breath from her as she was already almost close to climax.  At this point, his tight grip assisted her deeps thrusts, pushing her in faster movements.  He put his mouth upon her other breast, letting his tongue flow over her nipple with the movements of her thrusts.  His thumb dug into the knife wounds from the night before and the combination of pleasure and pain sent her over the edge.

            Any suppression she had ever had in regards to Jim at that moment had completely disintegrated as she practically melted into his touch.  Her inebriated state the night before may have been an excuse to forget her woeful decisions last night, but nothing could excuse her completely from her submission and satisfaction with him at that moment.  She leaned back, letting the waves of pleasure drown her completely, feeling numb to even an ounce of remorse. 

            “I’m not done with you yet, sweetheart,” he said when he felt her satiated body begin to slow.  He shoved her back onto the bed, removing himself from her, and shifted onto his knees, swinging her legs over his shoulder and pushing into her so deeply it hurt.  But as they both had already figured out, pain is what completed them. They were nothing without it, and the amplification of it was an aphrodisiac of sorts.

            The way he rammed himself into her warranted her loud cries.  He had even leaned forward to deepen his range, but found that her flexibility quickly allowed her to adapt to his position, despite the fact that her legs were almost parallel to her torso.  He leaned upon the arm he used to support himself next to her head and continued pushing full force, closing his eyes as he let his own gratification reach him and he allowed himself to release into her.

            His quivering body fell next to her on his back while one of his hands remained on her inner thigh to feel the combination of their fluids trickle down her skin the to sheets to join the mess of sweat and blood they had already created.

            As they lay there collecting their breaths, he couldn’t help but think how this the most unexpected thing to happen. The most he expected was a new employee, and now he found himself having sleepovers and practically missing an entire day’s worth of work for sex.  Not that sex wasn’t important; it was merely more of a power play for him than anything.

            He finally mustered the strength to get up and begin to put his trousers back on.  “You know, when all this is over, I could just chop your head off and hang it on my mantelpiece…” he mused, talking more to himself than anything. 

            She chuckled as she sat up. “I’m flattered.”

            He turned away to hide the faint twitch of a smile on his face.  Of course she saw that as a compliment.  He suppressed his carnal urges as he picked up the tattered remains of shirt, throwing aside the now-useless piece of cloth.  When he reached the blade, he picked it up and pondered over it for a second before walking over to the bed and placing it on the nightstand for her.

            She raised his eyebrows at him. “Most men usually go for flowers and chocolates,” she jested.

            His face was void of all laughter however as he stepped toward her, wrapping his fingers around her neck. He didn’t squeeze but lightly brushed up and down along the sides, feeling her heartbeat rise at his touch not from arousal but fear.  “The next time I come in here, you better be finished with your job,” he began slowly, his cold eyes looking directly into hers, “or dead.”

            With that, he turned around and walked out of the room, reminding her that he was the infamous, deadly Jim Moriarty, and nothing had changed between them.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another smut warning.

            James Moriarty sat in his office in the compound, a clean white room with a black desk in the middle and a roaring fireplace off to the side. He was staring up at a TV on the wall mounted opposite to him, his legs kicked up on the desk casually. 

            “ _Falls of the Reichenbach, Turner’s masterpiece, thankfully recovered owing to the prodigious talent of Mr. Sherlock Holmes_ ,” the news station blared, zooming in on a lanky curly-haired man looking uncomfortable off to the side. He couldn’t help but smirk as he watched the news report.  Yes, finally a break from this tedium.

            He picked up his phone and dialed a number.  “I’ll take the name Richard Brook,” he spoke into it.

            “Yes, sir.  I’ll begin forging immediately,” the woman’s voice on the other line replied. He hung up and returned to the news.

            Not too long after the report ended, a scruffy man came into the room. “Some good news and bad news, sir,” he began.

            Jim turned off the news and turned to him, moving his head from one side to the other as if trying to crack his neck.  “Well?”

            “Bad news is that the Pentonville Prison employee almost gave us up. We’ve taken care of him, but now we’ll have to find another up to the task…”

            Jim’s eyes darkened over the chocolate brown they usually were. It was a dangerous look and the man knew nothing good could come of it.

            He was right as his boss took up a glass paperweight from his desk and threw it against the wall, allowing the glass to shatter throughout the room. He grabbed another object, the phone, and let if follow a similar fate.  One by one, the employee watched as Jim began throwing things against the wall or into the fireplace, not even bothering to flinch slightly at any of the motions.  They were all used to his temper.

            Finally, Jim closed the distance between them and ended with his handed clutching the neck of his employee, the reptilian eyes looking into his own unperturbed ones.

            “And _what_ is the good news?” he asked savagely.  The man was significantly larger than Jim, in height and muscle, and could easily have killed him in a number of ways.  But Jim was his brilliant employer; the man with the plan, and no one dare defy him.

            “Mycroft’s girl is finished.  She sent out the final report not too long ago.”

            He let go of the man and pondered his words.  She was finally done collecting information.  He now had all he needed to put his plan into action. Other than an employee at Pentonville Prison, of course.

            “What do you intend on doing with her now?” the other man asked slowly, clearly seeing the gears that were turning in his boss’s mind.

            “I need to see her,” he responded absentmindedly as he walked out of the room.

 

            What awoke her was a stiffness that began settling into her limbs. She tried to moved into a comfortable position where she could easily fall back asleep but found that she couldn’t.  As soon as she realized something was wrong and she needed to kick into reflexive mode, but it was too late. 

            She opened her eyes with another body hovering above hers, carefully working a tight knot into a silk strip of cloth that connected her wrist to the bedpost.  It was too late for the rest of her limbs, as they had already been tied down. She was now naked and spread eagle on the bed, no blanket to comfort her as she felt fully exposed.

            She tried her hardest to shake herself awake and come to mental senses when the figure seated itself in a chair next to the bed.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” she finally asked, having abandoned all fatigue.

            “I felt I should congratulate you,” the figure answered in the familiar high-pitched tone of Jim Moriarty that gave her the chills.

            “Is that so…” she responded, feeling an unfamiliar chill in the air. Jim had been seated with his back to the only light source the room – a dim crescent moon – so she couldn’t see what facial expression he bore, but judging from her current position, it was not a good omen for her.

            “And now it’s time to let you go…” His words bore heaviness to them, as if he himself was unsure what he meant by it.  A few moments of silence passed until he finally revealed his hand. “How would you like a permanent position within my staff?”

            She smirked at his silhouette.  “I think I’ve had quite enough of _your staff_ for one lifetime,” she retorted.  After a few more uncomfortable moments of silence in which she could have sworn she felt the room grow cooler, she continued, “Besides, you promised me freedom from your little war with Mycroft.”

            “I did.  But I was hoping you’d reconsider given the…circumstances,” he responded, his voice still emotionless in the still night.

            “I didn’t,” she replied, almost too quickly.

            He heard a soft click of his tongue.  “I would recommend you reconsider.”

            She couldn’t help but chuckle at his recommendation.  “Or else what?  You’ll kill me?  Oh Jim, there’s only so many times you can threaten to kill a girl before she stops believing you,” she jested.

            The chill in the air only grew icier as the silence remained. She had no idea what reaction she elicited, but the lack of response told her enough.

            The weight shifted on the bed and she knew he had crawled onto the foot of it. A second later, a pair of arms weaved around her thighs, pulling them apart and pressing into them. And then came a soft breath that slowly moved its way from her inners knees to the outside of pubic mound. She felt his breath falter just outside of her most sensitive area, before hands moved up and pulled her lower lips apart.

            The first thing she felt after that was the tip of his tongue brush very lightly against the skin underneath, eliciting a moan and her hips to thrust up half an inch – as much as they possibly could before the fabric bounding her ankles pulled her back onto the silken tangle underneath her.

            She felt a smirk press up against her before he once again stuck his tongue and ran it along the very tip of her clit, bringing out another moan and attempt to move.  Oh yes, he had done a very good job with the bindings indeed.  He used his fingers to part her and hold her down at the same time as he continued to stroke his tongue in a delicate motion upwards. With each passing stroke, his tongue dove in deeper and deeper, letting the body of it run over the bundle of nerves that were so taut he practically felt her heart beat through them. He eventually sucked the tiny bud into his mouth and let his tongue flick over and over it, evoking the strongest response from her yet.

            Her body clenched up and she held her restraints tightly in her hands as she let out a moan so loud he was sure at least one other person in the compound had heard.  Despite the fabric digging into her wrists and ankles, she couldn’t help but pull against them, aching to feel her hands across the back of his head or wrap her thighs around him as he continued to extract waves upon waves of pleasure from her body.

            “Oh god, Jim!” she exclaimed as the tiny circles his tongue was making built up a final intensity in her that she just couldn’t fight.  After a brief clenching of muscles, she felt herself let go in waves, clenching and unclenching herself over and over as she felt pure ecstasy wash over her.  Her mind went blank, the rest of body felt weightless, and she felt like nothing else mattered in the world than Jim’s tongue and her bliss.

            Just as her euphoria started to settle down, she felt herself start pulling away from Jim’s mouth but the restraints soon stopped her.  “Jim…stop,” she managed to breathe out in between satisfied huffs.

            He began to pull a little harder on her now, making slight sucking noises in the air to break the heavy silence.  She was at the point of oversensitivity at this point and her clit began to throb under the weight of his tongue.  “Fucking stop, Jim!” she managed to growl out, every muscle in her lower body attempting to reject him at that point.

            He looked up at her from his position and she saw the moonlight reflect the blackness in his eyes.  It was an unrecognizable look that appeared deranged, twisted, unsatisfied in every way, and it scared her beyond hope.  There was no pleasure in this now; it was merely Jim Moriarty using his punching bag as he saw fit.

            She found that she had pulled against her harnesses so much that each limb already began to show a blue hue against her skin.  Jim’s grip pulled her hips so tightly onto the mattress that even that area began to ache.  Not even the muscles in her body could save her now from what was the most intense pain she had ever felt.

            Her body glistened with sweat and droplets of tears had run down her face as she finally whimpered, “Jim…stop… _please_.” She felt consciousness become elusive as the blood went rushing to her genitals instead of her brain and she felt like she was about to pass out at any given moment.

            He slowly stopped his actions and let her out of his mouth, looking up at her to see her defeated form helpless in front of him.  She was violently shaking from head to foot, her eyes barely able to stay open.  He sat up and watched as she fought off the desire to fall into unconsciousness. It almost made him feel bad for his sudden loss of control.  Almost.  After all, there were worse ways to go.

            She wanted to punch him, kick him as hard as she could in the balls, to beat him until he was _begging_ for his life.  Throughout the entirety of her situation, it’s all she could think about, but her bounds kept her from so much as avoiding his touch.  And now she found herself shrunken into practically nothing in front of him, the complete loss of dignity almost humiliating.  Whatever had caused this occurrence was far beyond her control, but no less excusable.

            Despite her lack of awareness of the outside world, she did feel a slight change and forced her eyes open to once again find Jim over her, his black Swiss Army in hand and cutting her bonds free one by one.  Once the last had been loosed, she found herself unable to move.  Any movement of her over-stimulated body was bound to pain her once more so lay there, absolutely still, hoping Jim would leave the room at any moment.

            He waited for several minutes to the side of the bed, looking out into the night sky and thinking over their situation as she regained her composure. The steadying of her breath and slow bodily movements told him she had almost recovered so he turned around and took her into his arms, burying one of his hands into her hair to feel the cool moisture.  He wasn’t sure if it was cold sweat or drying tears but either way he couldn’t help but feel a slight bit of satisfaction hit him.

            Every touch of his sickened her.  When he had pulled her face up, she couldn’t help but be thankful for her gathered strength.  She clenched her unbroken hand and threw it against Jim’s jaw, making sure she put a forceful amount of strength behind her swing.  It was met with a crack, but she didn’t care to see its outcome as she continued with a backhand from the same hand.

            When he slowly faced her once more, she found that she had successfully split open the side of his lip and caused a significant redness along his cheekbone, knowing it would be an alarming shade of blue by tomorrow. His face was unmoved from the emotionless state it was in before her assault started, unfazed her by her sudden violence.  Opposite to her expectation of him lashing out, he grabbed her from the root of her hair and pulled her lips into his own.

            The coppery taste of his blood wasn’t enough to distract her from this spontaneous action.  It was certainly not what she expected.  She had to remind herself once more that Jim was a wild card in her book and never would be what she expected.

            Despite what she had just been through, the thrill of his spontaneity made her grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer for a deeper kiss, allowing her mouth to part so their tongues could hungrily explore each other’s. Their actions had a certain finality to them that was irresistible.  Her task had been completed and it was either time for him to leave her be, or kill her, and they both knew that a decision had to be made. But for now, they reveled in each other’s presence, taking the most out of it that they could.

            Jim wasted no time in helping her to remove the garments from his body as quickly as he could.  Returning his hands into her still-dampened hair and lips to hers, he lowered her slowly onto the bed, his fingertips sliding along her side, making sure to feel every pore with sincere intrigue, while his lips slowed their actions. He steadily moved along her jaw to her neck, gently sucking some of the delicate patches of skin on there.

            A puzzled look crossed her face as she said in between shallow breaths, “Don’t tell me you’re into making love now.”

            He chuckled into the crook of her neck as he made his way back up. “If you want, I can go get my glock and _really_ spice things up,” he joked, nipping at the corner of lips.

            “How considerate of you…” she joked, locking his lips in a deep embrace once more.

            “Perhaps next time, then,” he whispered after pulling away from her once more and looking directly into her eyes.  She felt a chill up her spine in the way that he said it, feeling the uncertainty of her future hang above both their heads.

            He diffused the tension by pressing his rigid staff against her opening, testing to see if her oversensitivity had passed.  He found her wet and willing, feeling reassured by her sharp intake of breath.  He took his time pushing into her, wanting to savor the movement of her walls around him and how they reacted to his blissful intrusion.  After burying himself completely into her, he paused to savor the moment before pulling almost completely out and repeating the process.

            She felt frustrated beneath him, wondering why he drew this out when he could just as easily slam into her repeatedly, earning both of their pleasure peaks to arrive significantly faster.  His leisurely movements were infuriatingly not enough.  Just as she opened her mouth to protest, he locked her into a kiss so passionate that it had answered everything.

            She felt the touch of loneliness within him, the monotony of the world around him never having been enough.  He was in no way the misunderstood villain, but rather he had traits that humanized him, such as dealing out and craving affection that wasn’t entirely sexual in its nature.  He relished in the intimate contact because it was a warm reciprocation he was not used to.

            She slid her fingers into his short soft hair, pulling him closer to her. He welcomed the action and sped up his thrusts slightly, feeling the need for her build up inside him. She wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him into her deeper, causing him to pull away from his lips and back into the crook of her shoulder, allowing them both to release the sighs of passion that were pent up inside them.

            “J-Jim!” she gasped out, as he reoriented himself to rub directly against her clit with each passing thrust.  She didn’t think it was possible after the treatment he had given her earlier, but she felt the sensation of satisfaction nearing within her as he continued to move soft, steady pace at just the right angle.

            He felt so familiar with her at this point that he knew her release was approaching by the constricting of her walls.  He didn’t know how close he himself was until he felt her tighten, and willed himself to keep it together until she was satiated.  He slowed his movements down, taking her face into one of his hands and saying, “Tell me what you want, Emma…”

            Her ragged breaths were not helping to keep her mind from fogging up and going back to his tantalizing thrusts.  It was merely the fact that he had used her name to bring her focus back to him, for he had not said it since their first meeting.  “I want you, Jim,” she replied, locking eyes with him.

            She could have sworn she saw the corner of his lip twitch in a smirk that said, ‘ _my pleasure_ ,’ but she couldn’t dwell on whether it had actually happened or not as he sped up his movements and deep thrusts.

            Her mind went numb as he finished her off.  She was about to release a loud moan when he once again bore his lips upon hers, finding that he too had his finalized moans to release within her.  They both relished in one of those rare moments when both partners finished together, their passionate sighs matching up to break the night’s silence.

            He collapsed on her chest to wait his out his exhilarated feeling, rising and falling with her chest as she did the same.  His fingers almost absentmindedly began to stroke her side until they came upon a scab. He lifted his head up to see that it was the familiar _JM_ that was on its way to healing.

            “That’s going to leave a scar…” he commented in a distant voice.

            She smiled from her place against the pillow with her hand still in his hair, her thumb softly stroking him. “A friend once told me that scars are tattoos with better stories.”

            She felt him smile against her skin as he gave the area one last stroke.  “That’d make a hell of a story.  Sleep well, Emma Marin.”

            She tried her hardest to forget about whatever fate awaited her tomorrow and forced her eyes shut. She found that after that perfect coital session, it was almost too easy to drift off into sleep with Moriarty still resting across her body.


	8. Chapter Eight

            A stiff anxious feeling is what awoke her more than the daylight that seemed to drown the entire room in unwanted light.  She found she was alone in the room, but then again she recalled a shifting weight upon the bed just when dawn started to break a few hours ago. She didn’t think anything of it, but she was rather hoping for his company on this morning. Not that she blamed him. Today was the day his decision had to be made and she was sure he wouldn’t want to be burdened by sentiment for her.

            She removed her aching body from the bed.  For someone who wasn’t tortured very routinely in her time here, she had gained many scars and bruises and found herself sore far too often. It was a change compared to her usual tedious routine of waking up soundly and sleeping in the same manner without human contact for days, so she questioned whether she preferred her old life to this exciting new one.  Perhaps she should have taken Jim up on his offer than risk getting killed…

            She scooped up the robe at the foot of the bed after standing and closed up the front of it as tightly as she could, reminding her of the silk restraints digging into her the previous night and suppressing a grin.  She knew she shouldn’t have considered that a pleasant memory, but in his defense it was followed by one slightly more pleasing.

            Turning around, she walked toward the window, looking out at the vast emptiness around the compound.  Vibrant green grass swayed to and fro, and trees lined the far distance where the road most likely was. She was sure that the compound was practically unnoticeable, or at least surrounded by similar ones on either side to seem inconspicuous.  Jim Moriarty was flamboyant, but he wasn’t stupid.

            The door behind her opened and shut with a slam.  She closed her eyes, knowing that this was the moment of truth: the life or death moment in which she would either have everything she ever wanted, or nothing at all.  She swallowed hard and turned around.

            A man stood there, tall and muscular with a hardened gruff face. He was most certainly not the man who brought her food and water on a daily basis.

            “Pleasant morning,” she started as his eyes glared at her face.

            His response was reaching into the inside of his jacket and pulling out a .44.

             Of course, Jim wouldn’t be able the one to do it.  Instead he sent this detached lackey. She let out a heavy sigh and approached him until she was about a foot away.  “Go on, then." 

            He lifted his arm up and aimed the gun to her forehead.  She clenched her hands and awaited the shot. Instead, what she heard was muffled footsteps outside of the door.  The man turned in his head in confusion and she took this moment as an opportunity.  She grabbed his gun arm and twisted it behind his back , making him fall to his knees to make his neck more accessible to her so she could put it into a chokehold until the man had passed out from lack of oxygen.

            Breathing heavily from the struggle, she let the body drop to the floor right before her bedroom door was kicked open with violence.  In walked many men clad in all black special operation suits, guns ready in hand as they scanned the room around her.

            “A little sooner would have been nice…” she panted out.

            “You were fine on your own,” a dismissive voice rang out.  The men parted to let the authoritative figure through.

            She rolled her eyes at his presence.  “I hadn’t expected you to come,” she said to Mycroft.

            “I’ve been waiting for this day for quite some time.  I couldn’t help myself,” he responded, taking in his surroundings with distaste.

            “You’re welcome, then,” she said assertively.

            “I am rather curious…how _did_ you manage to get a signal out to us from here?”

            “I have my ways,” she replied, eyeing him as he scanned the room and made deduction after deduction, figuring out almost every second of activity that went on in there.  She could see the disgust etched clearly upon his face, but Mycroft’s judgment of her was the last thing she cared about at the moment.  “Mycroft Holmes, I endured pain beyond anything you’ve ever felt for your precious project so I think I’m more than deserving of my house in the Hamptons, don’t you?”

            He opened his mouth to speak when of the operatives emerged from the restroom and said, “Sir…ma’am…there’s a message in here for you.”

            She and Mycroft both exchanged brief puzzled glances as they rushed into the room.  Everything had been untouched save for the mirror above the vanity, which now had writing scrawled across it in black marker.

 

_Clever girl. Enjoy your retirement. And tell Daddy Holmes I’m not quite done with him yet…_

_JM_

            They both stood there processing the words when another operative entered the room. “Sir, the compound has been scaled and we’ve detained a number of accomplices, but no sign of Moriarty anywhere.”

             Puzzlement turned into heavy panic.  The silence in the room was thick anxiety.  When Mycroft finally turned to her, his eyes blazed with a silent fury.  She wasn’t sure if the fury was directed at her or it was a general frustration of having been so close to something he’s strived toward for so long before having it snatched away from within his grip.  Not that she cared for Mycroft’s anger.  She was far too busy trying to figure out how Jim could have possible figured out her ruse.

            “I suppose we’re done here,” Mycroft finally said aloud slowly. Anthea walked in after him carrying folded clothes.  “Get dressed. There’s a car waiting outside to take you back to a safe house.”

            “To a safe house?” she fumed.  “I’ve had bones broken, bruising down to the bone, and scars that will _never_ heal because of this, and you want to back out of our deal?”

            He kept his composure throughout her rage and calmly responded, “The deal was not that you survive this mission; it was to get us Moriarty, which you failed at.  Not only that, but you compromised a significant portion of information with which Moriarty is bound to use to terrorize this nation, so you actually managed to make matters worse. So yes, you’re to go to a safe house, and then await my arrival to brief me on every bit of information you’ve given him.  I think we’re done here.” He curtly turned upon his heel and left the room before everyone followed, leaving her alone with her disgrace.

  

            Now clad in a formal pantsuit, she walked through the halls that were littered with operatives searching for any possible secret escapes.  She eventually had to ask someone how to get through this maze to the exit, as she hadn’t realized just how large the estate was.

            After finally finding the exit, she looked out upon the scene in front of her, a dirt roadway now littered in black armored vans, and stepped into the Rolls Royce that pulled up directly in front of her.  The second the door was closed and she ensured that all the tinted windows were up, she let her composure fall apart.

            Burying her face in her hands, she let out shaky breath after shaky breath, allowing her stress and anxiety to wash over her in waves.

            This was not the predicted outcome at all.  There were many possibilities, but this was far from all of them. Her first assumption was that she would be put through more extensive torture and ultimately killed, whether she informed or not.  When that didn’t happen and she was given a task to do, she sent out a brief distress call. Her expectation of that was that Jim would be immediately apprehended and she would be sent of to live her own life in Alaska or something.  Instead, she found herself unable to keep her hands off of him.

            She couldn’t help but contemplate how long Jim had known about her betrayal. Had he been pretending this whole time also?  Clearly he had to have known the previous night throughout their intimate relations. She thought about how it could have been the reason why he had been so angry coming into it, but thought otherwise since he eventually warmed up to her.  So that left the fact that he knew about her betrayal all along, and didn’t care one bit because he was already ten steps ahead of her.

            She couldn’t help but feel like a disposable puppet, being played by whomever chanced upon her.  It was a tennis tournament between two players, Mycroft and Moriarty, and she was the ball, being used with different shots by each.  She should have just let Moriarty’s man kill her when she had the chance.

            She finally brought her head up and rested it against the window. She was tired, the kind of tired that no amount of sleep would not cure, so she sat in that position inattentively for the duration of the ride as a dull landscape passed her by.

            When the car’s movements began to slow, she brought her attention back to the world around her.  They stopped on the tarmac and the driver got out to open the door for her. When she stepped out, she looked upon the small white jet in front of her but found something to be slightly off.  There was no one else on the tarmac, which was odd since she was always accompanied by executives to escort her.  This jet was also a far newer model than the government, even MI6, could afford.

            She looked at the man in confusion.  “Where is this jet going again?” she asked timidly.

            He smiled at her.  “To Brazil, ma’am.”

            She studied his face and asked, “You don’t work for Mycroft, do you?”

            This earned a toothy grin from him.  “Not on most days.”

            “But he sent someone to kill me,” she argued.

            “Boss does like to be dramatic.”

            She couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening and found herself unable to move until she had figured out the situation.  “Why?” was her final question.

            “He said you two made a deal.”

            “That’s it?”

            “That’s it.”

            She felt a grin appear on her face as all fatigue fled her, and she moved toward the aircraft like a holy man toward heaven.  She sat down in the black armchair in front of was a tabled littered with falsified documents, legal paperwork, and a good amount of cash to get a life started with.

            All this had more than likely caused a significant amount of trouble to obtain, and she was shocked that Jim Moriarty had gone through all the inconvenience just to keep a deal he made with her what felt like ages ago. Although she knew it didn’t come from sentiment, she couldn’t help but feel a little compassion toward the man. At least more so than she did coming into all of this.

            Looking back, she thought of regrets throughout her lifetime.  Her first regret was joining the army and turning into the hardened person she had become.  Accepting a job with MI6 had become another.  And she was sure throughout her years, there were tons of small regrets that added up to where she ultimately landed.  Ambition had led her astray from the kind-hearted, charitable woman she could have become.  But one thing she could not regret was her time with Jim Moriarty. Sure, it was a cold, toxic relationship that never had any future, but here she was given a second chance to change it all, thanks to him.  And in the end, just when she started warming up to the idea that death was finally a better option than her sheltered life, he had saved her. And for that, he would forever hold a place in her highest regards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed reading! I did leave it open slightly for a sequel, but I suppose it all depends on responses from you guys, so let me know what you think!


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